Sunday, December 4, 2011

Situated at 2,335 meters (7,661 feet) above sea level in the Andes Mountains, Arequipa is Peru's second most populous city with a population of nearly a million. Despite its location in the tropic zone, the elevation prevents it from exceeding 77 degrees Fahrenheit or dipping below 40 at night. At the higher elevations outside the city, the temperature drops much lower (as we unwittingly discovered on our last trip there...even our hearty Wisconsin skin was no match for the fierce Andean winds).

Andes Mountains seen through one of Arequipa's narrow streets.

Santa Catalina Monastery, built in 1580.

Vicunas (alpaca's cousins) grazing just outside Arequipa.

A woman sits outside her home in the Los Tambos neighborhood.

Arequipa's Central Square

Santa Catalina Monastery

A colorful street.

A local resident watching a parade in celebration of Arequipa's many weekend festivals (Peruvians are good at finding reasons to celebrate!)

Fair Indigo ended up in Arequipa because it serves as the regional hub for Peru's sustainable alpaca herding and knitting. The ancient Incas called alpaca the "fiber of the gods." We call it the "Cashmere of the Andes." An ethical option for those who want something really special, but are reluctant to indulge in cashmere because of the factory farm model it usually adheres to. We've offered our Baby Alpaca Scarf (no, not from baby alpacas!) since 2006 and it continues to be one of our top sellers year after year. A classic gift, made fairly. Workers like Manuela below enjoy a decent living and upward mobility thanks to our customers' continued purchases of this scarf.

Here's Manuela finishing up the "fringe" on our alpaca scarf.

Employees enjoying a lunch of delicious Peruvian cuisine.

Employees enjoy a free health clinic on site.

These alpacas are herded and sheared sustainably and with great care. The market for their fleece in North America grows little by little each year but is dwarfed by the mammoth cashmere industry. We're grateful for our customers who are helping to turn the tide. You can see our growing collection of alpaca styles here.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

When you have a single bag in your hands, it seems like a small deal. What's one plastic bag going to add to the world's waste glut? But when you take a hundred billion of them and throw in the fact that each one takes 1,000 years to degrade in a landfill, you can see what a difference using reusable bags would make.

Here are some other not so fun facts:

12 million barrels of oil are used to make a year's use of plastic bags.

Only 1-2% of these bags are recycled.

Thousands of marine animals and over a million birds die each year as a result of plastic pollution.

And that's just the plastic. 10 billion paper bags are consumed each year using the resources from 14 million trees.

Fair Indigo's decision to carry Envirosax Reusable Shopping Bags was not without much internal discussion. They are not made of natural or recycled materials. They are not bio-degradable.

But our philosophy has always been how to help consumers move the ethical shopping needle furthest and fastest. Organic canvas totes may be the purest solution, but they tend to be heavier and bulkier. Our thinking was that we could help hundreds of people change their shopping habits with canvas bags or thousands, maybe tens of thousands, with super cool, super stylish, and super well-designed Envirosax. With limited inventory purchasing resources, we went with Envirosax and have never looked back.

In fact, since late 2008, our customers have put over 60,000 reusable shopping bags in circulation. That's potentially 7.2 million fewer plastic bags used per year if each 40-pound capacity Envirosax replaced two plastic bags per week. A tiny drop in the 100 billion bucket, but a start. And with Envirosax's new designs every season, we're confident this is just the beginning.